


Petunia Dursley's Tried-and-Tested Nightmare Cure

by bluesponge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Missing Scene, Nightmares, Petunia is a complicated character, Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, nothing more explicit than whats in the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesponge/pseuds/bluesponge
Summary: Petunia would rather not have overheard Harry having a nightmare, but she did, and now she's faced with the very uncomfortable dilemma of where in the world she goes from here.
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley & Harry Potter, Petunia Evans Dursley & Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Petunia Dursley's Tried-and-Tested Nightmare Cure

Normally, Petunia Dursley was a heavy sleeper. She'd always been able to sleep through just about anything, even when she was a little girl – Lily used to tease her about it. She’d say, _you’d sleep soundly next to a banshee._ Petunia had never quite understood the insult in it. Sleeping soundly next to a banshee had seemed like a superpower more than anything, and goodness knows there weren’t many things that made her extraordinary, not next to Lily.

Nowadays, the only thought she gave to it was the occasional sense of dull gratitude. It was a practical quality, one that allowed her to sleep in the same bed as her snoring husband, like all proper wives. But this night was not like other nights. Tonight, Petunia Dursley lay awake in her marital bed, sometimes falling into a restless sleep and then being pulled back out of it by a creak or groan or whistle of the wind, and no amount of tossing and turning seemed to tire her racing mind. And Vernon’s monstrous snorting certainly wasn’t helping matters.

Whatever the reason, her nerves were frazzled and her were senses attuned to the tiniest of changes around her, and perhaps that was why she heard the faint moan coming from the hallway, this of all nights. Faintly annoyed by the disturbance and wondering what it could possibly be, Petunia slipped out from underneath the covers and stepped outside the bedroom. It was then that she noticed - there was light under the doorway of Harry’s room. Petunia became aghast at the thought he might be awake as well. What on Earth could he be doing in there, at this hour? Nothing good, certainly. Some sort of freakish moonlight ritual, perhaps - maybe this was why she couldn’t fall asleep; her horrible nephew, unbeknownst to them all, was cursing them under cover of night! And now that she was decidedly, irreversibly awake, confronted with the evidence, who was she to condone it? What kind of wife and mother would she be if she left her family vulnerable to the machinations of dark magic? She made to turn the doorknob, but Petunia found herself rooted to the floor in fear, mind flooding with images of extra appendages, of her face made grotesque by warts and all manner of disfiguring blemishes.

In the middle of picturing how she might look with her tongue lengthened like Dudley’s had been only last summer, a little cry startled her out of her panic and before she realized what she was doing, Petunia turned the knob of Harry’s door and walked inside. She was surprised to see that although his lamp was lit, her nephew was most definitely asleep. And the look on his face was one she’d never seen before, all scrunched up in terror and pain. It wasn’t concern, exactly, what she was feeling, nor was it pity. But she’d never seen Harry look like this, not in all the years they’d forced him to endure terrifying and painful things. And she couldn’t look away.

“Cedric - no - ” Petunia stiffened in horror, because this was much worse, the desperation and choking panic in a voice that hadn’t even deepened yet; there was terrible knowledge tinged in the tenor of that voice, and it wasn’t right, wasn’t normal that a boy’s voice could sound like that.

And then there was an awful scream and Petunia shrieked and Harry yelled some more except this time he was unmistakably and horribly awake, tears streaming down his face and for a long, long moment, staring past her - through her - eyes terrified and wild. She watched then as the fear drained from them, as they dimmed and darkened, until Harry sat before her motionless, seeing something she could not see, with his eyes - Lily’s eyes - empty and dead. If he noticed or cared she was there, he did not say.

Petunia swallowed thickly, searching in vain for something, anything to say. He’d made quite a commotion. He could’ve woken them all with such a racket. If it had been Vernon in here, he’d probably have yelled himself hoarse and given him a smack ‘round the head for good measure. Goodness knows she was inches away from doing that herself, giving her a fright like that. Goodness knows whatever had happened to him, whatever had terrified him so, he’d probably brought upon himself. The boy had always pushed her limits, driven her halfway to madness with his refusal to follow the rules even once in a while. He was unruly and contrary and impertinent to the last. And goodness knows he’d given her enough grief, enough grey hairs and headaches in his fourteen short years.

Lily had been the same way. Always pushing, never bending, never satisfied with the very limits of what Petunia was capable of acheiving. If there was one thing Petunia resented most about Harry, it was that he made her think of Lily more times a week than she could stomach. Now, watching him as his eyes found their way to her, as he regarded her without surprise or wariness or even bother, as he shrugged and said, “nightmare,” by way of explanation and without apology, in that tone like they could’ve been discussing the weather, she thought of Lily.

She thought of that sweltering day one summer when their regular little family had acquiesced to the heat and packed up for the public pool. It had been before the nasty revelation of Lily’s freakishness, before she’d even met that awful boy from Spinner’s End, back when the whole world was Lily, when there was nothing to be ventured or discovered without the security of her laughing presence or the comfort of her warm, smooth palm in Petunia’s own. But Lily had been determined to jump from the high dive for weeks, and as she chattered excitedly in the car that day, it had become clear to Petunia that she would be able to distract and dissuade Lily from it no longer.

She remembered just how high the view from the high dive had seemed that day. Petunia had been certain that jumping would be a fate nothing less than deadly. As the eldest, it had been to Lily only fair that Petunia should get to go first, and now here she was, staring down death, because the things Lily wanted were always bigger than the things Petunia feared. Here she was, dragged right up to her limits by nothing but her sister’s unfathomable force of will, paraylzed by fear. An actual wall before her would’ve been no less immobilizing.

And suddenly there had been Lily, right behind her, with a gentle smile. She’d walked the length of the board until she was pressed up next to Petunia at the edge, and now she took her hand. “Tuney,” she murmured, quietly, so that the snickering boys in line wouldn’t hear. “I’m scared too.”

Petunia had been shocked. Lily, scared? It couldn’t possibly be. Not once could she remember Lily being daunted by anything, and she’d faced down greater dangers than the high dive. The neighbor’s dog came to mind. Even now, she didn’t look scared. She was perfectly relaxed, as though she could’ve spread out a picnic blanket and spent a few hours right up there on that diving board. She must’ve read Petunia’s disbelief on her face, because she nodded earnestly. “I’m not lying, I really am scared,” she said. “But I also really, really want to know what it’s like.”

“What, dying?” Petunia had retorted, fear giving her words an edge that made them sound more scathing than she’d meant them to.

Lily pressed on, unbothered, flashing Petunia a bright smile. “Flying,” she said.

And before Petunia had a chance to say anything else, there was Lily’s hand in hers and nothing beneath her feet; she felt it all in one moment, the tension and release, her stiff posture and muscles pulled taut melting into weightlessness as for one, transcendent moment she hung suspended in the air. She heard herself scream, heard it blend together with Lily’s laughter, felt falling turn into flying as the world became a rush of color and sound, a feeling like nothing she’d ever imagined. As the scene she’d studied so intensely in her fear dissolved into something unrecognizable, as everything she’d been certain of suddenly broke apart and broke her open, there was Lily’s hand in hers, familiar, assuring, pulling her out of herself and right through the surface of the water.

She remembered how shocking a revelation the water had been, stinging and cold, and she shivered, now, looking at Harry, lost for words.

Petunia had once been plagued by nightmares; in the months before she was due to take her GCSEs, she’d had recurrent dreams of walking into the exam room totally naked. She’d woken up from those dreams sobbing from the terror and humiliation, and her parents had tried everything to help - warm drinks before bed, night lights, even a horribly awkward appointment with a counsellor. In the end, the only thing that’d really done the trick was gruelling exercise, until she’d been simply too exhausted to dream.

Harry was still staring at her - or through her - and Petunia took note of the tightness of his jaw, of his bouncing knee. A better person than she might’ve offered a warm embrace or a kind word. If it had been Dudley, she would’ve already had him wrapped up in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa on the couch. A better person would’ve loved Harry the way she loved Dudley, but when Petunia looked at her nephew, she didn’t feel warmth, or even indifference. She’d tried, back when he’d been that small baby on their doorstep. She’d tried to feel something bigger than the fear that stopped her now from smoothing his hair and brushing away the tears on his cheeks. But looking at him, tucked in that pathetic little blanket next to the milk bottles, she’d seen only a harbinger of, if not disaster, at the very least uncertainty and change. Up to that moment, she’d been happy. She’d have been perfectly content to live out the rest of her days in exactly the same manner as the one before. But there in front of her was her strange sister’s strange son, anathema to her safe and orderly little world.

Anathema, and Lily. And if that wasn’t exactly it, if that wasn’t the story of her life, Petunia afraid and her sister refusing to let her look away. There she was from beyond the grave, still forcing her world wide open.

She’d been quiet too long. Harry was staring at her - only her now, it seemed - and Petunia was thrown again into the memory of the diving board, of the certainty in Lily’s eyes that there were more important things, whether a desire to fly or just to survive the next moment and the one after that, a certainty that had transcended time and even death.

She straightened. “Well,” she said, sharply enough so that Harry’s head snapped up, pulled out of his stupor. “Seeing as you’re awake, there’s no sense not putting you to some good use. The kitchen floor’s due for a polish. You’ll find everything you need under the sink.”

Harry stared, eyes flashing for just a moment, before he slumped, resigned. “Fine. Whatever,” he said.

Petunia charitably ignored the rudeness. “Put some real elbow grease into it,” she said. “I want those floors shining by morning.” She had to turn away, then. Silence stretched between them as she made her way across the room. She paused before turning the handle to the door, but didn’t turn back around. “If you finish before dawn,” she said, hand on the knob, “don’t lollygag about. I won’t have you roaming the house in the wee hours when you could get up to God-knows-what.” She opened the door, pointing a stern finger behind her. “Return to bed, and I shan’t like to see you before breakfast.”

She was well enough exhausted from the whole ordeal. Dudley might complain, but Vernon certainly wouldn’t turn his nose up at a lie-in. A late breakfast wouldn’t be the end of the world.


End file.
